Tag Archives: French

Pronunciation tip: 64 French expressions

A little bit of French has long been a sign of culture in English (never mind how much of our vocabulary comes from French). We like to drop in the occasional cultured phrase… and many of us aim to be particular about the pronunciation… including some people who don’t really know the original French pronunciation. I have pronunciation tips for 64 French terms that get tossed around in English, not always accurately. This doesn’t include food-related terms; I’ll do a separate video for those. Today I cover aide-de-camp, au contraire, au naturel, avant-garde, Beaux-Arts, Bell Époque, bête noire, bon voyage, boudoir, bric-à-brac, bricolage, cache, cachet, carte blanche, cause célèbrechaise longue, cherchez la femme, clique, concierge, couloir, coup d’état, coup de grâce, crèche, cul-de-sac, de rigueur, déjà vu, eau de toilette, en pointe, en route, esprit de corps, fait accompli, femme fatale, fin de siècle, fleur-de-lis, haute couture, idée fixe, je ne sais quoi, joie de vivre, laissez-faire, lèse majesté, lingerie, ménage à trois, naïveté, noblesse oblige, nom de plume, nouveau riche, œuvre, oh là là, papier-mâché, pas de deux, petite bourgeoisie, pied-à-terre, prêt-à-porter, prix fixe, quelle horreur, raison d’être, roman à clef, roué, sacrebleu, sang-froid, savoir-faire, tête-à-tête, trompe-l’œil, and vis-à-vis.

Pronunciation tip: “Happy new year” in 27 languages

I’m overdue for a pronunciation tip video. Sorry – I’ve been busy doing things that earn money! (Also things that cost money. Travel in particular.) Here’s how to say “Happy new year!” in 27 languages: Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, and Welsh. And I give a bit of linguistic geekery here and there too.

How do you say “laptop” in Lakota?

I’ve been on vacation the last few days, so I haven’t gotten to posting a word tasting. But my latest article for The Week is up. This one came at the suggestion and with the assistance of several people involved in the Lakota language preservation projects, and it took me far too long to get around to writing. I was lucky to have enough background in the other languages I mention: Mandarin, Icelandic, French… but the Lakota is the centrepiece, and the point is:

This is how old languages add new words

 

Linguistic invasion?

My latest piece for TheWeek.com looks at “foreign” words that have come to be important in our political and military English, and how they got there:

Linguistic invasion! The foreign influence of English’s political and military words

My next article will be about annoying noises people – adults, even – make and should stop making. Do you have any favourites? Let me know today or tomorrow if you can!